The Progressive Reverend

There’s something almost defiant about Palm Sunday . It arrives with joy that knows full well what is coming. We line up with our branches, we hum the songs, we let ourselves get a little swept up in it all. There’s movement, laughter, children who take their roles very seriously, and adults who, just for a moment, remember how to play. We wave palm branches like we believe something good is possible. And maybe that’s the point. Because life doesn’t pause its heaviness for holy days. Grief doesn’t step aside. The world doesn’t suddenly become lighter just because the calendar tells us it should. We carry everything with us: the worry, the loss, the unanswered questions. They don’t disappear. But neither does joy. Palm Sunday feels like permission. Permission to celebrate even when your heart is tired. Permission to sing even if your voice is a little cracked. Permission to join the parade, knowing full well that the road ahead bends toward heartbreak. There’s something deeply...

This Lent has been heavy. Not the kind of heavy you can name neatly or wrap up in a tidy prayer. The kind that sits in the room with us, in red eyes, in long hugs, in the quiet “I’m okay” that isn’t really okay. A colleague reminded me the other day, softly, “Easter is coming.” And I took a deep breath, but what does hope mean when everything still hurts? Author Sophia Dembling writes about a man who reached out to her just weeks after his wife died, asking, “Please write something hopeful.” I’ve been sitting with that. Because if we’re honest, some of our hopes in grief are impossible. We hope the door might open and everything will be as it was. We hope for a way around the pain. A prayer that makes it disappear. But grief doesn’t work like that. There is no way around it. Only through. And that is not the kind of hope most of us want. But maybe hope isn’t about escaping grief. Maybe hope is what we practice inside of it. Hope looks like showing up when your heart is breaking. Lighti...

This week has been heavy. As a pastor, I sometimes feel like I’m supposed to be the steady one. The one who knows how to hold grief. The one with the words. The one who helps other people walk through loss. But this week I lost my dog. Our beautiful girl. My companion. My hiking partner. The one who quietly regulated my nervous system just by being beside me. The one who padded through the house like a soft presence of grace. And the truth is, my heart is broken. The strange thing about grief in ministry is that it rarely comes alone. In the past month, people in my congregation,  people I love deeply,   have lost brothers, mothers, lifelong friends, and  spouses. Hospital rooms. Funeral homes. Phone calls that start with that familiar pause. You begin to feel like the whole community is carrying loss at the same time. And in the middle of all that very real human grief, I found myself whispering a quiet question inside my own heart: Is it okay that I’m th...